


Restless Dreams

by chronicopheliac



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Biting, Choking, Dream Sex, Hannibal Lecter Being an Asshole, Lucid Dreaming, M/M, Season/Series 02, Tumblr Prompt, Wet Dream, Will gets a bit carried away, as usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 04:30:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12880209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicopheliac/pseuds/chronicopheliac
Summary: The prompt: astral projection/lucid shared dreaming? Intimate or otherwise.Will and Hannibal discover their connection runs deeper than they thought possible.





	Restless Dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Necronon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Necronon/gifts).



> This was a fun one to write! Thanks for the prompt! <3

Strange dreams were not a cause for concern for Will Graham. It was what he’d come to expect from sleep, more often than not. The encephalitis had made his dreams more vivid, difficult to discern from reality. But the horrors within were intimately familiar.

It wasn’t strange to find Hannibal in his dreams, either. Whether as himself, or in some other form. At first, Hannibal’s presence was more like a guide. Insidious, perhaps, but only at the edges. Urging. Influencing. After the hood had been lifted from Will’s eyes, Hannibal tended to take a more active role. Will fought him. Killed him. Saw himself reflected back, spouting truths he didn’t want to face.

This dream, however, was strange. Hannibal didn’t seem interested in Will at all. Actually, he seemed… lost. Confused. He wandered the clearing, as though the woods were unfamiliar to him. They should have been familiar. He and Will spent a lot of time here, these days. Talking.

Something about him seemed too solid. While the woods shifted and blurred around him, Hannibal remained the same. Apart, somehow.

It felt wrong.

From the other side of the clearing, Will called out to him. But as Hannibal turned, he faded away.

 

* * *

 

“How are you sleeping these days, Will?” Hannibal regarded him from his desk, inscrutable as ever.

“Fine. Better. I’m not… haunted so much, anymore.”

“No more fantasies of killing me?”

Will’s lips stretched into a grim smile. “Oh, I fantasize. Don’t have to be asleep for that.”

“And what of your dreams?”

A shrug. “Dreams shift and change. Sometimes they’re nightmares. Sometimes they’re… something else.”

Hannibal leaned back in his chair, tapping his pen on the desk. “Are you familiar with the practice of lucid dreaming?”

Will nodded. “Never really worked for me, though. I’m… aware I’m dreaming, but it’s the taking control part I’ve always had trouble with.”

“It’s quite a freeing experience. In your dreams, you can do anything. No risk of judgment, or consequences.”

Something to consider. It was obvious Hannibal was encouraging something in Will again. The bastard was always so keen to inspire Will’s darker urges. Maybe he hoped when Will did finally kill him, he’d be immortalized in the most beautiful tableau ever conceived.

 _Joke’s on him. I’ll leave him in a fucking ditch._  “Free to kill any unwelcome guests.”

“Just so.”

 

* * *

 

It had become habit to have a bit of whiskey before bed. It dulled his dreams. Which is why he skipped it, this time. It wasn’t as difficult to fall asleep as he’d feared.

The clearing was a vignette, faded at the edges. There was a table at the centre, decorated with Hannibal’s customary flair. Will frowned.

He hadn’t put the table there. There should have just been two chairs, close together. Like the office. The chairs appeared at the thought, but looked as unsettled as Will felt.

The centrepiece on the table gave Will pause. It was _very_  Hannibal. It didn’t feel like something in his own dream, but as though Hannibal had actually placed it there himself. Too detailed. Too accurate in its symbolism. Not something Will would have wasted much thought on.

Before he had the chance to conjure anything else, Hannibal appeared. Standing at the head of the table. Just as the night before, he seemed more solid than everything else. An invader.

Will came to stand at the table, to Hannibal’s right. “I didn’t ask for you.”

“I came on my own.”

“You… you can’t do that.”

“Can’t I? Then send me away.”

He tried. He closed his eyes, and thought of something else. The stream. A lake. A boat, with Abigail. When he opened his eyes, the woods had melted away, but Hannibal and his table were still there.

They stood on the surface of a lake. Or maybe it was an ocean - Will couldn’t see land.

Hannibal’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “You sent everything else away instead. Are you troubled by my presence in those woods?”

“Not usually. Why are you here?”

“I was practicing. I didn’t expect to end up in someone else’s dream.”

“How does that even happen?”

Looking out over the water, Hannibal’s lips quirked. Not quite a smile. “Perhaps we were reaching for each other. Were you thinking of me, as you fell asleep? I was thinking of you.”

Oh. That was… a discomfiting thought. Did their connection run so deep, they could share a dream? Literally? Will’s jaw clenched, and he closed his eyes again. This time, he thought of Hannibal’s office.

It was a decent approximation. Things weren’t quite the right size, or in the right place, but it was familiar enough. The ocean was too unsettling.

“You think about killing me, too?”

“No.”

“… Me killing you?” Weird, but. Well. Hannibal was weird. Far be it from Will to tell Hannibal how to enjoy himself in sleep.

“Not exactly.” There was that infuriating, indiscernible look again.

“Exactly what, then?”

Hannibal smiled. “I think that’s between me and the Will of my dreams.”

 

* * *

 

It felt as though he hadn’t slept a damn wink. Will spent the entire day distracted, wondering at what Hannibal meant. If they weren’t killing each other in his dreams, what the hell else could they be doing? Despite his own deception, he thought he and Hannibal didn’t have anything left to hide.

They saw each other. Clearly. Didn’t they?

That night, his sleep was fitful. His dreams restless. He didn’t see Hannibal. Maybe he didn’t sleep deeply enough to let him in.

The following night, Will tried breathing exercises. They helped him relax. This time, he thought of Hannibal’s dream. If Hannibal could invade his, then maybe he could invade Hannibal’s.

He found himself in a dim room, walls flickering with firelight. He couldn’t see the source of the fire. It was Hannibal’s living room. Sort of. Apparently, Hannibal took to redecorating in his dreams.

“Hello, Will.” Hannibal stood by the sofa, two drinks in hand. He held one out to Will.

Though he took it, Will peered into the glass with suspicion. “Dream drinking? Really? This isn’t some kind of fairy-land kind of thing, is it?”

“Nothing can force you to stay here.”

“So. I’m in your dream.”

“It would seem so.”

“And you were in my dream.”

“Yes.”

“How is this possible?”

“Perhaps we are so alike, so bonded that we share our thoughts more deeply than most.”

Though it was a dream, Will felt his heart pounding in his chest. He took a step back. He thought, maybe, the encephalitis had returned. Just as he’d connected too deeply to Garrett Jacob Hobbs, it was conceivable to think the same could happen with Hannibal.

“You’re not sick, Will. You are truly here, in my dream.”

“Then how did–”

“Naturally, when faced with something impossible, it would be your first thought.”

Of course. Will wanted to be skeptical, but he couldn’t deny the evidence. There were things present in the room Will recognized, but not because he’d ever seen them. He knew Hannibal well, better than anyone, probably. But not enough that this room could have come from his own mind.

“So you were thinking of me again.”

“And you of me.”

“What do you think about?”

Hannibal came to stand beside him, considering his own glass. “All of the things I wish to say, but cannot.”

“So say them now. No consequences, right?”

“This is different. You are not my dream.”

“Does it have to be?” There was an opportunity, here. They could say and do things no one else would know. Impossible things.

Hannibal was silent. He merely looked at Will, something dark and hungry in his eyes.

“… Hannibal?”

“I want you to use your hands.”

His hands. Will had told him he wanted to kill him with his hands. When he imagined it, his hands were around Hannibal’s neck, pressed so tight he could feel Hannibal’s pulse.

So that’s what he did. Hannibal fell easily to the ground. He didn’t fight back. Just as Will had imagined. Anticipated.The glasses shattered on the floor. It echoed inside his head, so loud he wondered if something else had shattered inside him.  Will pressed down, harder. He wondered if Hannibal died in his dream, he would die in the waking world.

Just as he felt Hannibal’s windpipe begin to give, Will lost his nerve. He eased the pressure, and sat back on Hannibal’s thighs. Hannibal’s eyes glinted in the flickering light.

“Don’t stop now, Will. You were almost there.” Hannibal’s voice was clear as a bell. As though Will hadn’t just choked him within an inch of his life.

“Christ. You’re fucked.”

“Not yet.”

Something clicked. The unreadable thing in Hannibal’s expression became clear. It was desire.

Will met Hannibal’s eyes. Hannibal’s lips curved up. Smug bastard.

Before he could think better of it, Will grabbed Hannibal by the collar and crashed their lips together. Tension buzzed in the air. The world - the _dream_  - trembled around them. They were on the floor, then a bed, a sofa, a desk. Apparently, Hannibal had dreamt this many times, before.

Everything flickered. He forced Hannibal’s lips apart with his tongue, hips grinding down. Was it the dream, or his own body that sent electric shocks down his spine? How much of this was Hannibal’s doing? The heat that grew between them, so hot it seared flesh, and yet–

No, they weren’t burning. They were naked. Sliding together, the heat merely flesh against flesh. He was inside Hannibal. Or was Hannibal inside him? There were too many sensations. It all blended and blurred. It didn’t matter. They were the same.

He dragged his tongue along Hannibal’s throat, teeth scraping over delicate skin. Oh, but the heat, he thought, might consume them. He bit into Hannibal’s throat, and tore. Hannibal cried out. Will cried out. They–

Will awoke drenched in sweat. Gasping for breath. He was in his own room, on his own bed. Something hot and damp pooled on his belly.

On his nightstand, his phone buzzed. A message from Hannibal.

_Sweet dreams, dear Will._

Will changed his mind. He wasn’t going to leave Hannibal in a ditch. He was going to tear him apart, and bury each piece so far under ground, no one would ever find him. No monument. No tableau. Doomed to obscurity.

As he faded back into sleep, he wondered if it was possible to take Hannibal apart in his - their - dream. He wanted to try.


End file.
